When Google stops demanding I put my real name and photograph on the Internet, I might start to believe someone at Google gives a damn about my security and privacy. The "don't be evil" crap at Google was stomped into the ground on the day of their IPO.

As long as rich people can use drones, either by paying for such programs or by ensuring that only government officials can use them (at their behest), they don't have to worry about poor people using them for their own needs instead of, say, using Google services to obtain information about their neighbors.

You people are disingenuous ass-hats. Google doesn't invade your privacy. Don't want to use a google service? Don't use it! Don't want to be recorded in your backyard by a flying camera? Sure, don't sign up for...OH WAIT! It's not the same goddamned thing at all!

malle-herbert:Ahem... Google tracks you all across the internet even if you have never used their services... never heard of google-analytics have you ?

Google Analytics? What, you mean that tool that lets you analyze how customers are using your website in order to improve it? THAT thing? Oh yeah, that's evil. That's the thing that's functionally equivalent to observing patrons in your store? THAT Thing?

No.. it's the part of google that is integrated into almost every frikki'n webpage on the net so it can track your every move...(google-analytics.com)Every website you ever visited...every page you looked at everything you clicked on etc...

All this information is gathered and stored by google to build an 'anonymous' profile of you...

Lexx:malle-herbert: Ahem... Google tracks you all across the internet even if you have never used their services... never heard of google-analytics have you ?

Google Analytics? What, you mean that tool that lets you analyze how customers are using your website in order to improve it? THAT thing? Oh yeah, that's evil. That's the thing that's functionally equivalent to observing patrons in your store? THAT Thing?

If by observing your patrons you mean follow them to the next store and the next and then home and for the rest of their lives after that. Yah, that thing.

Disingenuous ass-hat, good ring to that one, the sort of thing that should be remembered in some way, some sort of marker that permanently affixes information to a particular individual.

malle-herbert:No.. it's the part of google that is integrated into almost every frikki'n webpage on the net so it can track your every move...(google-analytics.com)Every website you ever visited...every page you looked at everything you clicked on etc...

All this information is gathered and stored by google to build an 'anonymous' profile of you...

Public place = no expectation of privacy. Drones can fly anywhere, and private use of them certainly won't have the same amount of individual oversight as lawmakers have to google's mapping project.

Stop making goddamn false equivalencies, you jackasses. Google's CEO, who probably has to spend more hours of his life than ANYONE contemplating privacy issues & legislation, is freaked out at the idea that his neighbor can buy a $200 drone and fly it over his yard & monitor his family in their home. Yes, it's a legitimate concern. No, this is not the place to go on your mindless bashing.

Public place = no expectation of privacy. Drones can fly anywhere, and private use of them certainly won't have the same amount of individual oversight as lawmakers have to google's mapping project.

Stop making goddamn false equivalencies, you jackasses. Google's CEO, who probably has to spend more hours of his life than ANYONE contemplating privacy issues & legislation, is freaked out at the idea that his neighbor can buy a $200 drone and fly it over his yard & monitor his family in their home. Yes, it's a legitimate concern. No, this is not the place to go on your mindless bashing.

Go home Mr Schmidt, you're drunk.

Welcome to fark, I think it goes without saying that we're all of the same mind when it comes to these things, its just also fun to point out the irony of him leading the charge. This guy built an empire out of wiggling around privacy laws, pushing the boundaries of acceptable collection strategies and even delving into the beyond acceptable whenever they can get away with it (wardriving routers while mapping streets, etc etc). It kind of makes you wonder what his opinion would have been if following every single person around with such a drone was a viable business model for google instead.

I believe that he is pushing the topic specifically because Google wants to use drones. He's right that there is very little regulation that applies to drones and (almost) none that applies *specifically* to drones. What he's trying to do is raise it as an issue (using scary stories) and thereby prompt some action on regulation. Why would he do that? Because he wants Google to be able to help shape that regulation via lobbying of all sorts.